Liberate your employees or pay the price for stress

In their studies of the stress levels of more than 10,000 British civil servants, psychologists Bosma, Stansfeld and Marmot found that men who feel they have little control over their jobs are 50% more likely to develop heart disease than those who feel in control. For women, the risk is 100% higher. The root cause of this suffering is a universal human need for responsibility and freedom in work. In bureaucratic organisations only people with control – managers – can potentially escape procedures; most employees at the bottom of the hierarchy have their need for control over their tasks denied. Heart disease is the last ring in a chain of physiological consequences of work stress and this is very costly.